cornelius and his nonsense circa 2012. or elf on the shelf antics.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of food and family and lots of both! Some of you may be out braving the mad crowds for a quick bargain, to which I say, I applaud you.

Today is, in my mind, the day where all my chronic early Christmas preparations become not quite so strange...Normally. This year as you all know the madness started early. Real early.. But something special about today? Today is the day we get to start playing around with Cornelius!

Have you heard of Elf on the Shelf? If you don't go on Pinterest or you don't have young kids this post will seem utterly ridiculous to you I get that. Basically the thought behind Elf on the Shelf is parents get to use it as a tool to make their kids behave. Insert evil laugh here. Matt and I actually had more fun with this than Letty did last year although we are hoping this year she will get in on the action. Every night after the kids went to bed we brainstormed and googled and Pinterested with our wine until we found a brand new (to us) idea! Our elf came to us last year (thank you Nonna and Poppop) and we named him Cornelius (after the elf in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Which if you are detail-oriented you may notice is actually called Hermey and Cornelius is the gold-digger guy. Details.).

So this is what Cornelius did at the Olsen household last year. Starting off with ringing the doorbell at my parent's house on Thanksgiving night bringing his movie and his book. Apologies for all the iPhone quality photos. And yes. We have an illness.